All too often, businesses impose strict guidelines as to how customer service focused employees should correspond with their client base. First and foremost, the majority of companies, no matter in what industry, stress how important it is to respect and develop strong relationships with their customers. This trend was commenced years ago, when it was a genuine gesture to make a courtesy call or visit to ensure customer satisfaction. Today, we experience the monotone customer service representatives who do not necessarily associate follow-ups and call backs as rapport-building techniques.

Firstly, lets discuss the importance of our customer service departments. Whether we like it or not, customer service has been overshadowed by the overwhelming amount of office politics and the so-called need to have meetings about what the next meeting will be about. Customer service representatives are the key to a successful business venture. They are the backbone and frontline contacts that are able to make or break the sales targets. They are also the individuals who will encourage customers to come back, pending that the customers experience was a positive one. Customer service and sales managers are always trying to enforce the Wow factor when dealing with their customers, but a key element is being omitted. I believe that there are three underlying constituents in creating a positive customer service department. Positive in the sense that the customer is satisfied, the service representative has completed their tasks successfully (with a smile of course), and the company has fulfilled their duties in providing a profitable product or service.

1. Knowledgeable Customer Service

It is a frequent occurrence that individuals experience a negative customer service experience. I would say this is mostly due to lack of training and even worse, a shortage of product or industry information. For the most part, customer service representatives are able to answer questions for their face value. This is regurgitated information provided by the desktop computer. The customer knows this! But what happens when a detailed explanation is required. We frequently hear the ums, ahs, sighs, and dead air. Companies need to spend more time, effort, and money in providing customer service departments with extensive training on their products and services. As well, increase the abilities of the employee to answer questions without referring to a 6 reference binder. Heck, why not even provide a little training on what the competition has to offer? Would this not help provide an even better customer experience, already knowing what your competitor is offering?

2. Involvement in Business Development/Sales

Why are customer service representatives so frequently left in the dark? Sales representatives and business developers are striving to increase sales numbers and improve the customer base for their respective companies. In this process, sales teams are too busy concerning themselves with year end bonuses and meeting targets. Imperative information on the customer is not being transferred to the customer service agents. A customer service agent should, in essence, know just as much if not more about the customer than that specific sales person. Sales persons, with all due respect, should open an ear as their service representative could potentially highlight critical sales and service issues. Do not forget, they are the individuals speaking to the customer every day. Individuals employed as outside sales and/or new business developers should absorb information from their customer service team, and respect it for more than just face value.

3. Why Not Remunerate?

I will put this as simply as possible. When will companies associate Customer Service Representative satisfaction with improved work performance and profitability? If not for the few key individuals who pay extra care to detail, quality, and the customer themselves, companies would take a turn for the worse, inevitably. Bluntly said, companies need to improve the gratification of their customer service teams: increase salaries, improve benefit packages, create bonus structures, monitor performance closely and reward those who deserve it. When we companies go above and beyond the so-called industry standards for remuneration.